Alone In The Blue
by KaeJae17
Summary: Katara is spiraling out of control and is left in Zuko's care, while Azula tries to pull Sokka together at the Western air temple. But are the siblings helping each other, or pushing too hard?
1. Chapter 1

Hey, blueflame here and ready to write. This is a Katara angst story (well, as good of one as I can write), with some Zutara love mixed into it. I'll warn you right now that if you're not used to my style of writing, you may get very confused by this story. If things don't make sense to you, plz ask me in a review. I'll answer your question as quickly as possible. This is my first Angst fic, so plz, be gentle. I thought I'd try my hand at the depressing side of things, and I hope you guys like it. Plz R+R!

Title: Alone In The Blue

Rating: T

Warnings: Angst, some mention of self-mutilation and suicide, past character death, and one waaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of character Katara, along with a very concerned Zuko and a psychotic Sokka.

Summary: Things haven't been going to great for Katara lately. She's lost her sanity, and Zuko is desperately trying to help her find it again. The once lively water bender is now a cold shell of what she used to be, but her boyfriend still has hope. Zuko still prays for her every night- still believes that Katara will get better. But has she just gone through too much?

The dark room seemed to echo silence as Katara sat, curled up in a ball, leaned up against a corner and the cool steel wall. Each breath she drew in seemed to shake her entire body, her heart thundering painfully against her chest. Cold sweat dripped steadily from her brow and into her ice blue eyes as they focused on the shining metal in front of her. A knife.

When had it started? When had she begun wishing that everything was different? When had she turned into someone else?

Katara let out a half-silent sob, burying her face against her knees. Who was she!

The door of the room opened quietly, and soft footsteps alerted her of her company. The young waterbender swallowed thickly, not sure if she wanted any company. They were probably just here to make sure she wasn't doing anything _dumb _, or losing her mind even more. She laughed mentally at the thought of it being possible to leak away any more sanity. All traces of mental stability had drained through the crack she had developed a long, looong time ago.

"Katara? Where did you get that? Why do you have it?" The voice was panicked, worried. Concerned. Zuko's voice. Katara slowly began to rise her eyes, peering into his amber colored orbs with her own empty glacier ones. Her lips trembled, and her smile was twisted.

"Why else? My skin felt like paper... I wanted to see how easy it would be to cut." She giggled quietly, frantic shakes errupting down her spine. Zuko's eyes widened, and he snatched the knife up, turning and chucking it between the bars in her window. He hadn't wanted to bar the window, but he was too worried that she would jump out of them one night and they'd find her dead on one of the lower roofs another morning. The thought had scared him so much that he had agreed to let the prison-like bars be installed on the one opening in the small room.

Katara stared at the window, tilting her head to the side as she examined the silver moonlight glowing against the iron bars. "Zuko... Zuko, I'm cold. Why am I so cold?" Katara looked up into his eyes as he walked over, falling to his knees at her side. "Why, Zuko? Why am I?" She sounded like a small, confused child, and Zuko had to choke back a sob. He wrapped his arms around his girlfriend, drawing her in close and pulling her onto his lap. He buried his face into her damp hair, closing his eyes as she snuggled against his shoulder. "You're really warm, Zuko. So, so warm..." Her voice drifted off as she became more comfortable, gazing intently at Zuko's shirt. A faint memory in the back of her mind pointed out that she had given him that shirt a few years ago.

"Katara, why do you do this? You're hurting yourself. This isn't good for you, you shouldn't live like this! Why won't you come back with me?" Zuko questioned, his voice a hybrid of a whisper and a whimper. He didn't understand why Katara wanted to stay in this cold room, and not anywhere else. She was like an empty shell; the lively, strong-willed, ambitious waterbender that had captured his heart so long ago was now cold and withdrawn. She couldn't even bring herself to bend anymore. They had known that things were getting dramatic when she had tossed her mother's necklace into a fireplace shortly after Aang's death. Zuko winced, trying to clear his mind of the painful memories that were approaching him. Katara's sigh brought him out of his thought.

"Because I'm different, Zuko." Katara said, seeming to be surprised that he didn't know this apparently obvious fact. She pulled back so she could look him in the face. "Because I scare people, and make them unhappy. I make you unhappy." She nodded, as if proving the point to herself as much as to him. Zuko shook his head, hot tears welling up in his eyes. This wasn't her. This wasn't his Katara.

"No, Katara, you don't make me unhappy. You being in here, not leaving, hardly eating. That makes me unhappy. I want you to come back with me, back into the warmer parts of the palace. Everybody misses you, Katara. We're all so worried about you. Every day I wake with the sadness of knowing that you may never come out with me again..." Zuko gently stroked her back as he spoke, trying to convince her of his point.

"Come... out...with... you..." Katara's eyes shimmered, and they shifted their gaze out the window, thoughts seeming to roll in her mind. Out. Yes, she remembered out. Out was where the war had been, before Zuko had been given the throne. Where it took her mother away, and then her father and Aang, as well. Out was where she was constantly coming close to being shot down from the sky. Out was dangerous. But, something told her there was a good out there. Happy memories, warm feelings. Maybe Zuko could explain. "I think I remember out... but... it scares me. I was attacked. My mommy... my mommy died... and then Aang, and daddy... but, then someone saved me. Helped Sokka get away...you, you saved me... and Azula... you guys brought me here..." Katara looked at Zuko, trying, trying so hard, to remember more. But she couldn't. Tears streamed down her cheeks as her efforts failed, and she buried her face in her boyfriend's shirt.

"Yeah, yeah I know. But there's other things." Zuko insisted, carrying Katara over to the bed and laying down with her. She blinked, then curled up against him, sighing in comfort. Zuko was so good at snuggling... "We used to watch sunsets together, and talk about the future. We would walk in the garden, swim in the lake, and practice our bending together. Katara, you and me, we planned to travel together someday. Just the two of us, out to see the world as a couple. We were going to have a family..." Zuko seemed to want to get lost in his memories, but he refused to leave Katara to dwell in her own dark thoughts.

"A family? I want to have a family... I wanna be a mommy..." Katara smiled then weakly pushed Zuko onto his back, climbing on top of him. "Zuko, make me be a mommy." Katara giggled, and Zuko gaped at her.

"Katara!" He gently set her back at his side, shaking his head in disbelief. "Katara, you're not ready yet. You need to get better before you can have a baby, otherwise you could die trying to carry it. Your health condition is not near clean enough for being with child."

"But, Zuko, don't you wanna be a daddy?" Katara's eyes were big and bright as she gripped the front of his shirt, nuzzling his tum.

"Of course, Katara. I wish to raise a family with you, but right now you're not ready. Besides, we're not even married." Zuko added a silent 'yet', just to reassure himself. He really wanted to marry Katara some day. But she wasn't in a good mental state right now. The terrifying truth of it was... she might never get better again. And he refused to accept that.

She had steadily began losing her nerve right after she had gotten word of her father's death. The fact that she and Sokka were orphans had hardened her quite a bit, and she had begun to smile less and less. Her eyes had started to lose their glow, and her laugh had more often been cold than it was cheerful. Her only escape had been bending, and seeing Zuko. They had started a relationship, and being around him always seemed to lift a weight from her shoulders. But then the rocks in her life took another tumble: down a very steep cliff.

Aang defeated Ozai, but was left in critical condition after the battle. For days the best doctors in the world tended to the boy, struggling to keep him alive. The young monk had fought off death for five nights before passing away. The news was devastating, and it left one very ominous fact. Katara and Sokka were on their own.

Sokka couldn't bare to be around anybody at the time. His thoughts had become so spurattic that he could decide to beat someone to a pulp, even if he had just seen them for the first time. He became violent around Katara, and she became afraid of him. Of course, boyfriend to the rescue, Zuko and Azula had found them in an Earth Kingdom forest, and made plans to give them some time away from each other. Hey, it had worked for them(1).

Sokka was sent to heal up in the Western Air Temple. Azula and a few other people went with him, and frequent letters told Zuko that he was comming along well. Katara went with Zuko back to the Fire Nation, and they had spent two years as a some-what happy couple. But Katara's sanity was still fading away, and she just wasn't herself anymore.

Katara began to refuse to sleep in the same bed as Zuko, even though they had made several uses of it already. After that, she didn't want to share a room with him. The blue girl assured her boyfriend that it had nothing to do with him or their relationship; she merely needed more space.

Apparently, to her, more space meant a cold, cell-like room on the other side of the palace.

If that wasn't a sure sign that things weren't going well, then what was? Zuko visited Katara constantly; to bring her food or blankets, to talk to her, to just plain be with her. Many a time he would curl up with her on her bed and provide for her a warmth that she had pushed away, possibly because of some kind of fear.

"Zuko?"

"Yes, Katara?" Zuko looked into her cerulean eyes and smiled warmly, trying to make her feel some amount of happiness.

"I still love you, Zuko. I want you to know that. No matter what happens, I will always, always love you, 'kay?" Katara's voice raised a pitch, almost to a squeak, at the last word, but there was still some spirit behind what she said. Zuko swallowed and closed his eyes, raining kisses on Katara's face.

"I know, Katara. I love you too. That's why I'm not going to give up; I won't stop fighting until you're yourself again. No matter what it takes. Just hang in there for me, okay? We can do this. Just hold on..." His words drifted off as sleep wrapped itself around the young lovers, cradling them in it's warm blanket. For the first time in awhile, both of their dreams were much brighter than their day.

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(1) In my fic, Zuko and Azula had talked to each other and all of a sudden decided that they didn't hate each other anymore... yeah...

Well, I know it's kind of mushy, but, I'm trying. I'm still debating on whether I want to continue it or not. I really don't think I did a very good job... at all... it skips around too much. NE way, NO FLAMES PLZ! Constructive critisicsm (or however the hell i'm supposed to spell that) is more than welcome- even requested!- but flames just make me upset. If you don't like the story, than why just upset someone who spends their time on it by being a total . Anywho, I hope you enjoyed it.


	2. Chapter 2

And here I thought I was never going to continue this story. Hmm. It's short; this is mostly to see if anybody will be interested in the story. So if you want more, leave a review.

Chapter Two: An Unfortunate Heart

The room was large, and built of stone. There were four windows, each starting about two feet from the floor and ending three feet from the ceiling. They were pane less, but only five inches in width. Thick curtains were tied off to the side of each to block the openings during cool weather. There were two windows on each wall - it was a corner room - so the light was evenly distributed, much to the chagrin of the room's inhabitant. A large, worn orange rug engraved with the symbol of the air nomads dominated the center of the floor, and several other small rugs and animal skins were scattered across the flagstone. A sleeping palette sat in the corner next to the door, covered in four animal skins of varying shades of brown. A small stool and shabby desk in the opposite corner were the only other pieces of furniture in the room.

Sokka stood in the center of said room, eyes wild and chest heaving. Not two feet away from him, Azula looked at his upset figure with narrowed eyes. She had told her brother that she would help Sokka through a mental healing, and she planned on doing just that. She would not return home a failure. She also, however, would not stay in this temple forever. Nobody expected her to throw her life away on this deranged tribesman. And yet... "Why don't you just get over your damn pride and come eat? You don't even have anything to be proud of!" She regretted the last statement, as such couldn't do much for a mental healing, and therefore probably made her job more difficult.

"Urgh!" Azula sailed through the air, disoriented for half a second, before she gracefully curled and landed on sturdy feet. The instant urge to shoot a nice fiery punch at her attacker was quickly suppressed as she stood up straight and dusted off her shoulders. "Fine. Be that way. I suppose you don't want to see Katara again, after all. That's no problem of mine." Her last sentence was irritated and her footsteps were heavy as she exited Sokka's "room." Slamming the metal door behind her, Azula was quick to shoot a meditative fireball at the closest wall. That boy was so damn ungrateful, stupid, hopeless, stubborn... With a sigh and a quick check on the perfection that was her hair, Azula admitted that that was exactly why she was helping Sokka.

It was like helping an old, lost piece of herself.

The agitated princess stalked down the shadowy hallway of the western air temple, trying to think of ways to force her charge to eat. They'd done it numerous ways before, including holding him down, shoving the food into his mouth and blocking his nose until he swallowed, but such methods usually ended up pushing him into deeper shades of red than he was already in. His anger had reached phenomenal levels – surpassing what even Azula had been like – leaving his close friends and family to try and take care of him.

She was neither close friend nor family. She was a kindred spirit, who herself had tasted the edge of a mental oblivion, who knew the hot surge of anger and the unbearable need to release like an old shadow. A shadow that, sometimes, still crept to her side. But Sokka was a better person than she had been. She knew this more than she knew anything.

And she would help him.


End file.
